More than six years after it was approved, the $64.2 million Jacksonville North VA Clinic and Domiciliary is serving veterans.
The facility is at 145 Heron Bay Road along Max Leggett Parkway northeast of UF Health North and River City Marketplace.
Part of the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center, the VA opened its outpatient clinic on April 9. The domiciliary is expected to open April 29.
A ribbon cutting ceremony is 11 a.m. April 23. VA Secretary Denis McDonough will be the keynote speaker.
The VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017 authorized construction of the clinic. The VA bought the 21.06-acre site for $8.42 million in 2020 and broke ground in 2021.
The outpatient clinic is 164,000 square feet. It has 101 patient care rooms. Twelve are dedicated to women’s health. There are 62 mental health patient care rooms. The physical therapy area is 2,200 square feet with six patient care rooms. There are optometry and audio stations.
Its services include:
• Mental health and suicide prevention.
• A women’s veteran program.
• Whole health.
• Veterans benefits administration.
• Toxic exposure screenings.
• LGBTQ+.
• Health promotion and disease prevention.
The domiciliary will serve homeless veterans, those needing substance abuse treatment or have serious mental illness. It has 30 beds with 19 resident support rooms and 17 patient care rooms. It has a teaching kitchen.
The clinic will replace the Jacksonville VA SouthPoint and Jacksonville VA University sites. The Jacksonville Outpatient Clinic on Jefferson Street in Springfield will remain open.
Indiana-based Meyer Najem Construction LLC is the contractor. Alabama-based Sain Associates is the civil engineer.
More than 130,000 veterans live in the Jacksonville area. Nationally, the VA saw 27,000 more new patients from October 2023 through February 2024 compared with the same period last year.